Falling in Love
by PrincessAlica
Summary: Melanie reminisces about the day that she fell in love with Ashley. A one shot that was one of my attempts at my prompt for the sunny funny ficathon. Its light hearted and sweet, and yes the sun is shining.


"It seems to me that the best relationships, the ones that last, are  
frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look  
at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a  
switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is  
suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with."

"I never imagined that it would be him. I had always dreamed of finding true love, and of course when I finally realized that he was the one I was only a child, not much older than those central characters in Romeo and Juliet. I always thought of him as a friend, or as my dear cousin from the country. He was dashing and charming, but not even a very constant part of my life. He was so much older than me, that it would be have been odd for me to have spent more time with him. But I remember the day clearly that I saw him as if with new eyes."

"It was a warm spring morning that he sauntered up the steps of Aunt Pitty's house, but it did end up being quite like a Tempest that day. I can recall every detail, from the exact song that birds sang as they twittered overhead to the pale pink dress that I was wearing to the careful way that my hair had been neatly arranged. But more than that I remember him. I hadn't seen him in three years time, and very little before that. But he had changed. He had changed from gangly awkward Ashley into a golden Grecian god. His bronzed skin that was exposed at the opening of his shirt glistened in the sun like a polished metal. I blushed. I know that I did. I was embarrassed to notice those changes in him. He wore a white, ruffled shirt under a carefully pressed pale blue jacket, that he wore with breeches. He made such dashing picture standing there in the sunlight. To have been in the sun as much as he had would have caused my skin to erupt into a field of freckles. And the blue of his jacket seemed to give his eyes a hint of pale blue that turned them into the color of the sky on a sunny day instead of the stormy day color that they usually were."

If Uncle Petter had not been busy handling a matter with Charles, who had only just arrived back from from Boston at the end of the school term, I would not have been the one to greet him. But alas I was.

His eyes were drowsy gray out of the sunlight as he slunk towards me like a alley cat stalking its prey. It was strange to look at him with these new emotions and attractions, for I remembered him from childhood visits that we had spent together. He been such a wonderful confidant. I could whisper any confidence to him and know that India and Honey would never know anything about it, despite the large gap of years between our ages. When I was younger some of my earliest memories are of him sitting on the porch reading stories to Charles and I and his sisters. He really had been so charming, but now it was different. There was an odd fire, as if suddenly he felt the magnetic change as well. Of course it would be such a lovely story if I could only relay that he had been dashing and charming and those other traits that men seem to pride themselves over, but that is not what happened.

First he tripped over the basket of yarn that I had been using as I practiced knitting socks, and then to add insult in injury, he stumbled across the stack of law books that Charles had left lying on the porch. He tried to catch himself, but the momentum pushed him forward in my direction where I stood, quietly sipping a glass of lemonade. I did try to step away, but he knocked into me and the glass of lemonade slipped from my hands, pouring over him and plastering his golden hair to his head and then finally falling and shattering at his feet.

He hates for me to remember him being so awkward and clumsy, but I do so love to think of moments like that when we are apart, for it is his faults that make him all the more charming. He likes to pretend that he like all men think that they are unfailing. At very least he hates to be reminded of the moments that he is less than grace and charm personified.

Oh, but then he sputtered and stammered like a lovestruck child. He kept apologizing for his actions, and offering to get me more to drink, but I was having such a time of it trying to keep from laughing in his face that I could not answer. So still sopping wet from my glass of lemonade, he rushed inside to replace mine. I know that Aunt PittyPat would have had a fit or swooned as she was so prone to having if she had seen him dripping lemonade all over her shiny clean floors. She did so hate for the slaves to have more to clean. There was enough to do already without adding more to their burden. She did so worry about overtaxing them, but I doubt that they are as fragile as she is or that she thinks that they are.

I had managed to dab up the errant spots of lemonade off of my dress by the time that he returned with Charles in tow who was five years his junior. Charles was talking animatedly about some character in one of the Shakespearian plays that I haven't particularly been interested in reading. Ashely handed me the glass without incident, but when he went to sit he somehow managed to miss sitting in it. And as I had just taken a dainty sip of my fresh glass of lemonade, I managed to snort the lemonade through my mouth, then up through my nose and showered both Charles and Ashley with it.

Measure for measure it was just about the most embarrassing day of my life, a comedy of errors on my part as well as Ashley's. But alas, all is well that ends well, I believe they say. I asked him later if he remembered that day, and he told me that be remembered it clearly. He said that while he was away I had managed to capture the beauty and grace of woman, though I was only a girl of fifteen. But I know the truth, he fell in love with me because I saw him as human and mortal and loved him because of who he was and not despite it. And we realized that we were two of a kind. And that our friendship would be basis for everything that might come afterwards. And from that day forward, from that sun dappled moment he was the only one that I could ever imagine sharing my life with.

I had the hardest time with this challenge. I have a hard time with Rhett and Scarlett being sunny and funny, so finally I went with someone other than Rhett and Scarlett. I hope that everyone enjoyed this. It was amusing to write.


End file.
